stitches

(Thank you for an excellent page. Sorry this is so disjointed, but I was trying to make the 800 word requirement, and I don't really have that much to say about my own experience.)
The first branding I did was with the tip of a lit stick of incense. This went poorly, I was fourteen years old and drunk, and I only managed to burn a half circle, comprised of approx. 8 little dots into my ankle. All but three of the dots have faded.
I wasn't sure what compelled me to begin scarring my body. For a year, I hid it very well, burning words and symbols and cutting lines into parts of my body that no one could see. Somehow, my father found out and he sent me to a therapist, who insisted that it had something to do with poor self-esteem. I believed that for awhile, stopping to re-examine my feelings when cutting/burning, and discovered that it was just the opposite: it was self-affirming, not in any form self-deprecating, and I did it because it was a way to claim my body as my own. After that, I resumed cutting/burning and, eventhough I do it less often now, it is still a cherished part of my life.
My favourite scars are the ones high on my thighs and on my hips. The hips scar best and the lines remain puffy and pink for sometime. I rarely recut a previous cut, just because the cuts somehow seem sacred just as they are, and I don't want to disturb them.
When I was sixteen I did a dot branding with cigarettes, on the outside of my right thigh, and still have a wonderful line of six pink dots running down my leg from it.
Before I do a cut or burn, I sit and focus myself for some time. It's like I am drawing myself back into my body, bringing all of me into one room again, so to speak. As I cut/burn I get a tremendous feeling of well-being, which I suppose must be the endorphins kicking in, and feel that I am stepping away from myself, and coming back to myself, all at once. My energy becomes very rooted, but not inside me. Just rooted, focused, part of something. Synergy or something, I don't know. I usually like to cut using an exacto-knife. I've never been able to get my hands on a scalpel, and I wish that I had thought to steal one from lab class, back when I was a highschool student.
I always make sure my blades are sterilyzed and that I have a bottle of peroxide at hand to clean the wounds with after. I have cut myself on about 100 different occasions over the last four years and have yet to experience an infection. I don't like to cover the cuts after they are completed. Prefer the feeling of my clothes rubbing against them.
I used to cut with a friend of mine. We weren't lovers, there wasn't anything sexual about it. Other than that, and a few SM/BD experiences with an older man, I've not really shared many experiences with others. I thoroughly enjoyed my SM/BD experiences, some of which included BM, but he moved away, and I've been unable to convince my current boyfriend to "play with me". He doesn't mind that I do it, he just doesn't want to do it himself. I suppose I understand that, though I feel that it would add to the trust and intimacy that's already part of our relationship.
I have friends who scar themselves in very visible places, but I feel that my cuttings/burnings are much too private for that. I really view them as a sacred, special part of who I am.
I really enjoy stitches. There's something so final about an open wound being cleanly stitched shut, something so fascinating and perfect. Last November I did a cut on my thigh, not fantastically artistic or creative, but long and straight and deep, approx. seven inches from tip to tail, and went to the emergency room for stitches. The doctor on duty gave me 12 blue-black stutures and a load of bullshit about "positive coping mechanisms" and "crisis management".
I left the stitches in longer than I was supposed to and cried when I had to have them removed. For months after, I slept with my hand covering the scar, stroking it absentmindedly while I fell asleep. I loved it.
Suffice to say, the scar has faded considerably now, but in time I will repeat the process and give myself another. I only wish I knew how to stitch myself up so that I wouldn't need to inconvenience the doctors at the ER. I feel badly for doing so.

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submitted by: Anonymouson: 26 Aug. 1999in
Scarification

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